Book Review: "The Offing" by Benjamin Myers

This book was recommended to me by a friend and was also fairly cheap on the Kindle store, so there are two pluses there. I had only briefly heard of The Offing before being recommended and initially had no intention to read it. However, I am actually pretty glad I did because it was a fantastic book filled with nature scenes, massive descriptions, references to literature and self-discovery. Basically everything that I actually like in a book. As a reader, you can get lost in these lengthy descriptive scenes where absolutely nothing is happening to the character, but nature seems to be alive. The long meadows, the fields and the images of the sea - it is all beautiful and incredibly written.

This book is about a sixteen-year-old boy named Robert Appleyard who loves exploring the natural world. It is just after the war and Robert is reflecting on all the bad it has brought upon the people he has seen come back from it. Even though his family's men have all been working in 'the pit', he wants to take a bit of a travel first - savouring those months after finishing school.

It is here where he meets the middle-aged and vibrant Dulcie Piper. Dulcie invites Robert in for tea and he ends up learning about what lemons and fennel are. Eventually, he stays for dinner too where though he has never eaten a lobster before, he absolutely loves it and Dulcie's cooking is apparently amazing. Robert helps her out in things like weeding her garden in order to do what he thinks is paying off the debt for food though Dulcie thinks a good meal is a right and doesn't need to be paid off.

Dulcie teaches Robert a whole load of things about life, literature and even about cars. She thinks he is smart and asks him why he does not choose to attend university, Robert admits he was not overly good at school but enjoyed what he did study. Stating that he studied Romeo and Juliet makes Dulcie annoyed at the fact that Shakespeare is studied in a classroom rather than on a stage where it was meant to be (a lot like myself actually) and eventually, she hands him a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover - one of the most famous banned books in all of history.

As their time goes on, they laugh and eat together and uncover facts and findings about each other. Robert works on a shed by Dulcie's cottage and finds that it used to be a writing studio containing the manuscript of someone called 'Romy Landau'. Romy Landau was once a poet and Robert is determined to find out who she was and what happened to her. He begins to ask leading questions as to how well Dulcie Piper knew Romy Landau and anything about where this prized poet might be now. It is not a happy story, but it is one of incredible depth and tragedy.

I loved this book so much and I thought that it was just a fantastic mix of description, great characters and a kind, well-developed narrator. I read somewhere that this was going to be made into a movie starring Helena Bonham-Carter, now if she is not playing Dulcie then I don't want to know. I cannot get that image of her as Dulcie out of my head - even the way the character speaks borders on a very HBC like tone and personality. Dulcie Piper has to be one of the most lovable characters I have read this year.

There are very few books that have such generous and kind characters, but there are also very few books that have a sixteen-year-old boy growing up in the aftermath of the war as their narrator. This boy's eyes are wide open and he is ready to take in the whole world. Even when Dulcie is speaking to him about literature and poetry, talking about his 'homerix voyage', he listens with great intent and asks questions as to what he doesn't understand. I think this is why Dulcie takes him to be a very clever child who has a lot of potential, because he never really stops exploring no matter what the exploring is.

All in all, I thought that this was a beautiful book filled with great descriptions of exploring nature, profound reflections about the war and its aftermath and a story within a story that captures the reader's soul. It is set out so simplistically and yet, it is so deep and philosophical. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book.